Writing Contests, Grants & Awards

The Writing Contests, Grants & Awards database includes details about the creative writing contests—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, and more—that we’ve published in Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it. Ours is the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

Two fellowships of $5,000 each are given biennially to a poet and a writer of fiction or creative nonfiction. Writers who have been residents of South Carolina for two years prior to the application...

A prize of $1,500 and publication by Fiction Collective Two is given annually for a short story collection, a novella or novella collection, or a novel. U.S. writers who have not previously published...

A prize of $1,000 and publication by National Poetry Review Press, in collaboration with Dream Horse Press, will be given annually for a collection of poetry or flash fiction. Profits from entry fees...

A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a poem, a short story, or an essay that addresses the theme of ecology. Alan Leslie Combs and David Vaux will judge. Using the online submission system, submit a...

A prize of $1,000 and publication by Carolina Wren Press will be given biennially for a novel by an author from, living in, or writing about the American South. The editors will judge. Using the online...

A prize of $1,000 is given biennially to an experimental or avant-garde poet. Poets who have published at least one poetry collection or 20 poems in five or more journals or anthologies are eligible....

A prize of $3,000 is given annually for a book-length translation of prose from any language into English, published in the United States during the previous year. Translators may be of any nationality....

A prize of $25,000 is given annually for a debut novel or short story collection published in the United States during the previous year. Writers must be U.S. residents. Submit three copies of a book...

A prize of $10,000 is given for a debut novel or short story collection published in the United States during the previous year. The winner also receives a residency fellowship at the Ucross Foundation in...

Fellowships of $7,500 are awarded biennially to Washington State poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. Students enrolled in a degree-granting program are ineligible. Submit up to 12...

Two residencies, cosponsored by the Texas Institute of Letters, at a rural retreat west of Austin are given annually to writers who are native Texans, have lived in Texas for at least three years, or who...